


Another Year

by Etnoe



Category: Gunnerkrigg Court
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-28
Updated: 2010-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-14 04:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/pseuds/Etnoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New Year's Day. It's closer to a countdown than anything else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Year

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [page 662](http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=662).

* * *

  
The First of January finds Zimmy hunched up on the spiral staircase behind her dorm room, at the turn where it's usually quiet, if there aren't a lot of people in the bathroom and she's thrown rocks at the nearest lights. Gamma's beside her, holding her with a hand on both shoulders.

Still - January First finds her.

It's all closer to a countdown than anything else. This isn't another single day but another _year_ , a new threat of day after day that gives her more time and new opportunities to walk off the edge of her own head. Some days, she could hate Gamma's smile.

What are all these collected days counting down to? When is _whatever it is_ going to happen? Zimmy's got a lot of answers to those questions and she's always getting new ones, night after brand new night for another year.

Gamma's smiling, as if it helps. She likes that everybody's having parties and giving good wishes, including to people they normally don't speak to, like the two of them. Gamma's holding her like she knows that it will matter, in the end.

It _does_ help, it does - today things feel really quiet for no reason, and the ash in Zimmy's eyes is smudging off a little bit, streaking grey down her face as if it's make-up. It _might_ matter that Gamma's here - it might matter all the way through to the end of another whole entire year.

The future keeps ticking towards them, and Zimmy breathes in enough to properly feel the steady grip on her shoulders, and she reminds herself that she knows having Gamma nearby will always help. But it hasn't always helped enough. Gamma needs to sleep, Carver can't always stand in, and there's a world that seems to need to find its way through Zimmy's head. So when's it going to happen?

No way of knowing. She can't get the hang of hoping.

It's quiet for now, so Zimmy is still in the relief of that. No buzzing from the lights; no chattering from the bathroom; no gear-stuffed birds scraping their claws along the stones just out of her sight. She doesn't say anything and lets Gamma smile, because even that smile doesn't mean that Gamma's stopped understanding. She's lived with this for years too - but she knows about hope. She never, ever waits for the end, even on a day like this that drags a bunch of endings with it.

Zimmy doesn't want to wait for the end, even though it is coming. She wants to absoutely hate the idea of it, and to blink ash off her eyelashes and feel lighter, get her teeth into it and end it _back_. But for now ... if she doesn't think about it as the First of January, it's a good day. How many quiet days come her way, after all? And it's not the Last Day, either.

So she will stay quiet and hidden, listening to Gamma hum and feeling the way she cares, and (there will be another, but) it's not the worst day.


End file.
